Aimless Words
by Stariceling
Summary: An ordinary enough morning for Fakir, opening into the leading edge of a new story. Spoilers for the end of the series.


Takes place after the end of the series. I'd like to write something that takes this and grows into a real plot, but I feel like a hundred people must have already done it better (and I feel like I can't read them until I either finish writing this or give up...)

* * *

For now he was only putting the world into words, instead of putting his words into the world. Once Drosselmeyer's story had ended, and the world had opened for him, Fakir found time to discover writing with more than the desperate frenzy that had marked the climax of their story.

First he wanted to write the world as it was. When the world suddenly expanded beyond the walls of that single town for him, there were more than enough new things to see, to pick details from and capture in words. Caution was something he suddenly had time for, and he took that time. He would not let any story he wrote turn into a tragedy under his hands. So for now he practiced writing things that were true, that wouldn't twist into their own shape without his consent.

Fakir was never alone while he wrote. One little duck with downy, yellow feathers was always nearby. Often when he sat on the dock over the lake to write she floated right at his feet.

She was his reason for writing, and also the reason he couldn't write. His paper filled with a confusion of adjectives and phrases that strained to go beyond mere descriptions. His mind filled with bits of stories, though he didn't know yet how any of them would end. This time, before he started, he wanted to know without a doubt that he could give Ahiru's story a happy ending.

Now, as always, she was there. She had her neck craned to watch him in his distraction. As soon as Fakir noticed the scrutiny she startled, flaring her wings in agitation before hurriedly turning to preen at her feathers.

Fakir couldn't help smiling at the reaction. He hung over the edge of the dock, reaching down just far enough to touch the water, and held out his open hand before the little duck.

It only took a second for her to lift her head again, her startle apparently forgotten as she looked from his hand to his face. There was no real hesitation before she climbed into his hand and allowed herself to be lifted to the dock beside him.

"Good morning, Ahiru."

"Qua," Ahiru answered. She fluttered her wings out again in a gesture that Fakir could have taken for a polite little curtsey if she had been a girl.

Then, without even asking, she stepped up to him with her queer flat-footed gait and tried to look at the pad of papers in his hands.

Fakir jerked the papers away, holding them so that she couldn't see. He could feel his face suddenly go hot with embarrassment. He couldn't have Ahiru, of all people, see the half-dreaming things he had written about her.

"You can't read it yet!"

"Qua!"

Ahiru flapped at him in protest. He could imagine her crying, 'That's not fair,' for not being able to see what he wrote about her.

"I said I'll show you when I'm done."

"Qua?"

"It's not that simple. I can't just write, '-and then the duck turned into a beautiful maiden and lived happily ever after,' and have it happen."

It had to be a story, not just a wish. Fakir had figured out that much. A new story had to begin before anything could happen. He couldn't just put what he wanted on paper and have it appear. He'd tried that, and still Ahiru stood before him clad in yellow feathers.

"Qua?"

Fakir fell silent. He was fairly sure that wordless query was Ahiru asking if he'd really written that down, and there was no good way to respond.

There was quiet, but no real silence. Wild birds called to each other across the lake. Water lapped at the dock. A lazy breeze ruffled at Ahiru's feathers and sighed in Fakir's ear. The morning was filled only with low, peaceful sounds.

Fakir poured some of his tea into his saucer and placed it in front of Ahiru. He was in the habit of bringing his breakfast tea out with him more for this ritual than to drink it himself.

Ahiru politely dipped her beak in the tea as Fakir sipped absentmindedly from the cup and found the tea had already gone cold. Ahiru didn't even seem to notice Without so much as a murmur of complaint, she fluffed out her feathers and settled where she was, evidently preparing for a nap.

The desire to smooth the unruly tuft of feathers on top of her head drifted through Fakir's mind. He pushed the thought aside almost as soon as it entered. That wouldn't get him anywhere. Instead, he tore off the top page and laid it aside, words down, before trying yet again to work out how he wanted to start.

As Fakir got back to work, Autor came out to see what he was up to. Fakir was so used to the other boy's presence by now that he didn't even look up.

Autor wouldn't interrupt, not while Fakir was writing. He did pick up Fakir's cold tea and sniff it, however. Just the sound of that sniff seemed to say, 'you got it wrong again, you should just let me make it.'

That sort of quiet disapproval was easy to ignore. Not so much when Autor reached for his tea filled saucer and started the now half-awake Ahiru.

Ahiru reacted to the unfamiliar hand reaching for her with a storm of flapping wings and startled quacking. Ducking around Autor's hand, she ran straight for Fakir.

She would have reached him, but she skidded on a loose paper, the page he had laid aside because it held nothing but confused descriptions of her eyes, her feathers, her little human gestures and the tint of her hair when she had been a girl. . .

Slipping on that page, Ahiru flew off the edge of the dock, making an indelicate splash in the lake before Fakir could catch her.

Fakir leaned way over on the edge of the dock to see if she was all right. Autor's hand was on his shoulder, probably trying to keep him from falling in as well.

Almost immediately Ahiru bobbed back up to the surface. She looked at the two of them and let out a sheepish, 'Qua.'

"It's no wonder you're not getting anything done." Autor muttered. He just shook his head at the spectacle and left with the remnants of Fakir's tea.

Fakir was never sure if Autor remembered Ahiru, or if he knew who she was now. If he found it strange that Fakir had apparently made friends with a duck he never commented. Yet he never spoke to Ahiru, or of her, and if he suspected who she was he had never asked for confirmation.

Ahiru was holding his lost paper in her beak, trying to stretch up enough to return it to him. Even as Fakir reached for it, the page fell apart in his hand.

"It doesn't matter," he reassured her, "I don't need it anymore."

Idle descriptions weren't enough. He wanted to see her again, as a girl. He wanted to talk to her and not just guess at what she was saying back.

Sometimes, when she thought no one was watching, Ahiru would dance by herself at the edge of the lake. Fakir had seen her, but he hadn't said a word. He hadn't even written a word about it, though the words that wanted to describe Ahiru's dance would not leave his head. More than anything he wanted to take Ahiru's hand and dance with her again.

It was only a wish, but as the calm of that morning atmosphere settled over Fakir again, those words found their way onto the paper. The story had to start somewhere.


End file.
